Over 16.5 million motor vehicles are sold in the United States to consumers every year. Today's consumers generally regard the ability to transport cargo in vehicles of various descriptions as a highly desired feature. Said transported cargo may include, but is not limited to, a variety of items including fast food containers, groceries, flowers, potted plants, school books, children's toys, purses, wallets, stationary items, computers, electronic equipment.
Currently, transported cargo is most typically transported in an unrestrained fashion by placing items on the transport vehicle floor, on the seat, the transport vehicle floor and/or cargo bed. Said unrestrained transported cargo is subject to spilling, vehicle or cargo damage, and often causes driver distraction from safe driving activities as it may move during transport. In recent years vehicle manufacturers and others have developed a series of restraining devices that are a fixed non portable and permanent part of the transport vehicle such as restraining devices incorporated as part of a vehicle seat, disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,139,096, 6,488,327 B1, and 6,929,321. Additionally, portable products that restrain cargo may be in the form of cargo boxes, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,015,071 or part of transport vehicle cargo beds or floor mats as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,254,162, 6,302,465 and 6,461,090. Common problems encountered with current permanent methods of restraining cargo include both the cost of incorporating the inventions within the transport vehicle and the fact that when it is the time for the cargo to be removed from the vehicle, it must be placed in another type of restraining or carrying device to be transported to the cargo's final destination. Additionally, cargo restraining devices incorporated as part of cargo bed liners or floor mats are clearly not designed to carry the restrained transported cargo from the transport vehicle to the cargo's final destination. And none of the aforementioned inventions or known inventions in the field solves the problem of transported vehicle passenger comfort, providing additional seat and back support for therapeutic purposes. The multiple purposes of restraining cargo in a transport vehicle, providing for said cargo to be easily transported from the vehicle to the cargo's final destination, and providing a transported passenger with seat and back support for more comfortable and therapeutic transportation is no where found in the known art.
The same problem of attempting to restrain cargo can be also be seen in every day sporting activities such as the simple task of trying to carry purchased food items from a food stand to your bleacher seat. In this case the spectator must either hold on to the purchased items and hope they don't spill, or use food stand cardboard carriers which are flimsy and can cause further spilling.
Important to vehicle purchasers and any person who wishes to sit down, is personal comfort and proper physical body support. As a result, in addition to the standard vehicle seat already installed in a transport vehicle, consumers annually purchase millions of additional seat cushion pads and back support products which improve sitting comfort. At sporting events, tens of millions of sporting enthusiasts use seat cushions and/or back support systems to remain comfortable during the sporting events. Medical doctors and therapists often prescribe seat cushion and back support products in order to improve their patients' medical conditions which have led to seat cushion and/back support industry in excess of 1 billion dollars per year.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide portable barrier, wall or partition assemblies which form enclosures incorporated into or with portable seat cushions and/or back support systems and to the methods by which such seat and or back support enclosure assemblies are easily used with transport vehicles, and/or seat cushion and/or more permanent back support structures. Further, it is an object of the present invention that it can be easily stowed in or as part of a portable seat cushion and/or back support system in a compact configuration and is easily deployed to form a walled enclosure restraining a wide variety of transported cargo.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a portable stowable cargo restraining enclosure assembly which can be readily placed in a variety of environments including but not limited to transport vehicles, seating configurations, and sporting event bleacher seats.
Another object of the present invention is to integrate the portable stowable cargo restraining enclosure assembly which has fewer components, is easier to store and use, and provides a more secure restraint methodology than conventional cargo enclosures. Further the present invention is easy to carry by the user.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a portable stowable cargo restraining enclosure assembly and method which will not impede cargo loading or unloading, is durable and is relatively inexpensive to construct.
An object of the present invention is to provide a portable stowable cargo restraining enclosure assembly and method incorporated into or with portable seat cushions and/or back support systems which improves the personal comfort and proper physical body support of the user in a wide variety of market applications.
Another object of the present invention is to provide, if needed, a method for attachment of the present invention to the vehicle seat assembly of a transport vehicle employing the same, and/or other non transport vehicle seat and/or cushion assemblies.
As used herein, the expression “transport vehicle” shall include motor vehicles, such as automobiles, buses, pickups, SUVs, vans, commercial trucks, watercraft, aircraft, trains, even golf carts, and equivalent motored vehicles used to transport cargo, as well as towed or un-powered cargo carriers, such as trailers and barges and equivalent un-powered vehicles used to transport cargo. “Bleachers” shall include any form of bench or seating assembly utilized as a seating device for sitting and viewing a variety of sports or other activities.
The portable cargo storage and restraining barrier walled enclosure assembly and method seat cushion and/or back support system and method of the present invention have other objects and features which will become apparent from, or are described in more detail in, the following description of the Best Mode of Carrying Out the Invention and the accompanying drawing.